


Unfamiliar Sheets

by thefoxholecycle



Series: Becoming [1]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Adam is a mess, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, College Student Adam Parrish, I don't know how colleges work, M/M, Nightmares, Non-Graphic Rape/Non-Con, Rape Aftermath, Ronan shows up at Adam's college, Self-Harm, This just kind of happened, especially the second chapter, im so sorry, im so sorry adam, take the warnings seriously
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-31
Updated: 2018-08-13
Packaged: 2019-05-16 11:39:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14810658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefoxholecycle/pseuds/thefoxholecycle
Summary: Ronan is unable to sleep without Adam in his bed, so he makes a surprise visit to Adam at college. There he discovers the reason why Adam has seemed distant since he left, and tries to help him through.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> First of all, please be safe reading this! This chapter is not too graphic, but does have a brief description of injuries, self-inflicted and otherwise, and a very minor panic/anxiety attack.  
> If you're looking for fluff, this isn't where you'll find it, and you should probably go read 100 Letters instead. 
> 
> That said, I hope you enjoy!

Ronan parked the BMW in the college parking lot, and followed the map he had acquired to the building Adam had told him he was staying in. It had been just under a month since Adam had left for college, and they hadn’t visited each other at all yet. Adam had said he would visit the Barns on weekends as he didn’t usually have classes on Friday afternoons or Mondays, but so far Adam had been too busy with work, settling in, and trying to find his way around the campus.  
It had been hard to get Adam to keep in touch, too- as much as Ronan disliked his phone, he had been trying to text and call Adam as much as he could, but Adam often didn’t pick up, or texted back only single word responses.  
Ronan, however, had absolutely nothing to keep him busy apart from missing Adam. In the end he’d gotten sick of being by himself, got in his car and just left. Adam didn’t know he was here, because Ronan himself didn’t know he was coming until he was halfway there. 

When he got into the building, he realised he didn’t actually know what number Adam’s dorm was. Texting him would have given it away, and besides Ronan had left his phone at home. He stopped a girl with bright pink hair who looked like she had just gotten out of bed, so Ronan didn’t think she had anywhere to be. 

“Hey, uh, do you know an Adam Parrish?” He asked, surprising himself with his politeness. The girl seemed to have to take a second to wake herself up before she responded. 

“Yeah, I do.” They both looked at each other expectantly, awaiting more information, and Ronan realised the girl had no way of actually knowing what he wanted. This was the problem with insomnia- all common sense and communication skills quickly went out of the window after a few sleepless nights.  
The insomnia hadn’t been helped by the fact that he had gotten very used to falling asleep with Adam in his bed- his own bedsheets had suddenly become unfamiliar to him the day Adam had left. Ronan hadn’t slept at all last night, which was how he managed to be here at 7 in the morning. 

“Do you know where his dorm is?” Ronan unwittingly began to let his impatience creep into his voice. If the pink-haired girl noticed, she didn’t show it. She pointed along a corridor to their left. 

“Down there somewhere. 249. It's almost all the way down.” She raised her eyebrows at him a bit, silently asking if he had anything else to say, but Ronan simply nodded and headed in the direction she had pointed, taking long strides and practically speed walking in his haste to get to Adam.  
When he found what he assumed to be the correct dorm, he found it unlocked. He could feel his heart beating hard in his chest, and he could feel his excitement and anxiety in his whole body, acting like a force not allowing his hand to knock the door but instead guiding it straight towards the handle. He opened the door without knocking, not regarding the risk of walking in on someone who was not Adam.

Adam was hunched over a desk in the corner of the room, pen in his hand, staring tiredly down at a stack of papers as if he had been there a while. He was wearing pyjama pants and a white long-sleeved t-shirt, and his blonde hair was messy like he’d run his hands through it many times.  
He didn’t look up as Ronan walked in, and Ronan got halfway across the room to him before he noticed. Ronan hadn’t said a work in case Adam actually was asleep with his eyes open. As Ronan approached, Adam turned his head, leant it on his hand with his elbow on the desk, and blinked slowly. 

“Have I fallen asleep or am I hallucinating?” He asked. Ronan sighed. 

“Neither. Did you miss me?” Ronan grinned as Adam’s eyes widened with the realisation that this wasn’t a product of his imagination. He immediately looked more awake and sprung from the desk, and before Ronan could take another step towards him his arms were around Ronan and his head was resting on Ronan’s chest. Ronan felt like his heart was going to burst. 

“I’ll take that as a yes.” Ronan wrapped both arms around Adam, and Adam pushed himself impossibly even closer to Ronan, burying his face in his boyfriend’s shirt. Ronan would usually have teased him for being such a sap, but after having driven here in the early hours of the morning just because he missed him so much, he really had no ammunition.  
After about a minute of standing in the middle of the room silently holding each other, Ronan realised he was going to have to be the one to pull away first. He was dead on his feet after not having slept in so long, and it seemed like Adam was too, so they could probably both do with at least sitting down or something. 

“You good there, Parrish?” Ronan questioned softly, removing his arms from around Adam and instead placing them on his shoulders, gently pulling Adam away from him.  
Adam nodded, looking to be slightly in shock at Ronan appearing out of nowhere. He was clearly tired as well, and he rubbed at his eyes with the backs of his hands while he yawned. Ronan wasn’t convinced that he had slept last night, either. 

“Do you have a class to get to?” It wouldn’t have been unlike Adam to get up this early even if he didn’t, just to feel like he was getting something done. Ronan didn’t see the point- if he had had the option to go to sleep every night for the past month, he would have taken it immediately without question, fuck everything else. 

“Not now, I do this afternoon though,” Adam replied, “but I have all this that’s due tomorrow and the day after.” He gestured at the papers on his desk.  
Ronan took in the bags under Adam’s eyes, the way his movements seemed lethargic and weighted, and the way he was so easily going along with Ronan showing up here, demanding no explanations, and made an easy decision. 

“We’re taking a nap. Come on, get to bed.” 

Adam frowned. He opened his mouth to object, but Ronan silenced him with a glare, turning him towards his bed with the hands that were still resting on his shoulders. Apparently Adam was too tired to argue, because he didn’t, and Ronan knew that if he could have he would have fought bitterly to be allowed to be as productive as possible. 

The bed was just about big enough for both boys- Adam was closest to the wall and facing it, and Ronan was on the outside, turned towards Adam. Adam kept trying to make conversation, but Ronan was having none of it. 

“I said sleep. I’ll wake you up in a few hours.” Once he stopped fighting it, it only took Adam a few minutes to fall asleep. Ronan didn’t think he was capable of staying awake himself to wake Adam, but he found Adam’s phone and set an alarm on it, turning the volume up to the highest it could go. There was no bedside table, so he put it on the floor next to the bed.  
It was too warm in Adam’s room, so Ronan turned over to face away from Adam so that he wasn’t getting so much of his body heat. To make up for not being able to see him, he moved his leg backwards and linked his ankle with the other boy’s. 

After that, Ronan found it ten times easier to fall asleep than any night he had spent without Adam.

****  
It was barely an hour later that Ronan was woken up by a loud noise, and something hitting his shoulder painfully. He turned over to see Adam’s face screwed up in anger or upset, and his fists clenched, clearly having just lashed out in his sleep and hit both Ronan and the wall. 

Ronan wasn’t certain whether it was best to wake Adam, or if touching him would only serve to panic him more. His decision was made for him when Adam started to cry quietly, not lashing out any more but curling in on himself, making himself as small as possible. Ronan carefully shook his arm and shoulder, trying to make sure it wouldn’t be misinterpreted by a sleeping Adam as someone trying to harm him.  
Adam jerked away from the touch, and Ronan cringed. Adam’s eyes were open, though, so at least the nightmare had stopped. He pressed his back against the wall, his knees pulled up to his chest, and worked to slow his laboured breathing. Ronan moved so that he was kneeling on the floor to give Adam space, his arms resting on the bed. 

“Hey, Adam, it’s just me.” 

Adam lifted his head to meet Ronan’s eyes. Ronan held his gaze and his breathing steadied, the tension draining from his muscles. He stretched his legs out and nudged Ronan’s arm with his foot, sighing. 

“Want to talk about it?” 

Adam shook his head. It wasn’t anything important- the same dream he’d been having since just after he’d left for college. He had assumed it would stop once he was in the same bed as Ronan again. Apparently not. He’d learned how not to look too rattled afterwards though, after his roommate Ollie had threatened to force him to see someone about it. He supposed it was fair. Ollie was a light sleeper; he found it hard to rest through Adam’s panic attacks and hours of crying. 

“It’s fine, I should probably get up anyway. What time is it?” Adam moved away from the wall and started to get out of bed, but Ronan put a hand in his way and raised an eyebrow. “Ro, don’t worry about it, seriously.” 

“How am I supposed to not worry when you won’t tell me what’s wrong?”  
Ronan knew that it wasn’t uncommon for Adam to have nightmares, but it was uncommon for him to make such an effort to avoid talking about it. A part of Ronan was concerned that it had been about something other than his dad, or it wouldn’t have been a problem to tell Ronan what had happened. It wouldn’t have been even close to the first time they’d had such a conversation. If there was something bothering Adam, Ronan wanted to know what it was.  
This was a part of the reason he’d been unable to sleep at the barns- worry that Adam would be struggling and he wouldn’t be there. It sounded self-centred even to him, but it was the truth. 

“I don’t want to talk about it right now.” Adam wouldn’t look at Ronan as he said it, and there was a forced hardness in his tone. Ronan tried not to let the same harshness into his own voice. 

“Will you at least promise me that if there’s something I need to know, you’ll tell me?”  
Adam said nothing. 

“Please tell me what’s going on, Adam.” 

Adam shook his head, still not looking at Ronan. Ronan started to feel like he was over-reacting about the whole thing. It could just be a dream; Adam might just want to talk about it later. Ronan was probably just making it worse by pushing so hard. He sighed, moving away from the bed to let Adam off. It was just after 8am, so Ronan supposed it was a reasonable hour to get up, if he ignored the fact that Adam had probably only gotten to sleep an hour ago.  
Ronan bit his tongue when Adam moved straight back over to the papers on his desk.

“I don’t know how to talk about it.” This was said so quietly that Ronan barely heard it. He wasn’t even sure he had been supposed to hear it. He didn’t want to ask, scared that if he did he’d end up making Adam more frustrated than he already was.

“Maybe we should talk later, or tomorrow, after we’ve had a decent night’s sleep, yeah?” He heard Adam sigh. 

“Yeah, let’s.”  
****  
Ronan sat with Adam while he worked. They mostly didn’t talk, but occasionally Adam would pause to explain what he was doing, or Ronan would read the work and ask questions, or Adam would ask Ronan about what he had missed in Henrietta while he had been gone. 

As it got closer to midday, the dorm got warmer, and it hadn’t been exactly cold in the first place. Ronan was fine in his tank top, but Adam, still in his long-sleeved shirt and pyjama pants, downed three glasses of ice water in two hours. When he got up to refill his glass again, Ronan noticed that the back of his shirt was soaked through with sweat. He laughed. 

“Maybe you should go change into a t-shirt or something, Parrish, seems easier than drinking your body weight in water.”  
Adam didn’t answer until he came back with another glass of water. He hesitated before he spoke. 

“I don’t think I should.” He had stopped meeting Ronan’s eyes again. Ronan’s stomach twisted before he even thought about Adam’s meaning- he had sounded apologetic, regretful, almost despondent. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” 

Adam shrugged. Ronan thought back to his reaction to the nightmare he had had and his refusal to talk about it. He had lashed out as if he had been trying to push someone away from him and Ronan didn’t think the dream had been about his father. Had someone hurt Adam? The thought made Ronan’s blood boil. 

“Adam, seriously.” He hadn’t wanted to push too hard, but there was no way he could just let this go now. 

“If I do then we have to talk about it.” Adam’s voice was strained, like he was having to force the words out. Ronan swore he heard his heart shatter in his chest. The last thing he wanted was to make Adam feel even more uncomfortable, but at this point he felt like he was going to be sick with anxiety from not knowing what was going on. 

“Do you think you could explain to me, if I don’t ask you anything about it until tomorrow? I really need to know what’s happening here.”  
Adam thought about it for a minute, and Ronan waited. Eventually, he nodded. It made Ronan’s stomach twist again. 

“If I go change, will you not say anything? Will you just let me speak first?” He sounded almost scared, and it made Ronan even more worried. He tried not to show it, for Adam’s sake, and he nodded as well.

“Sure.”

Adam put down his glass, and disappeared into his bedroom. Ronan waited, tapping his fingers on Adam’s desk anxiously. He wasn’t even sure any more that he wanted to know, but as soon as he had that thought he banished it, because he knew this must be ten times worse for Adam than for him. 

When Adam returned, he was wearing his coca-cola t-shirt. It was something of a meme now that that had pretty much become his identity at 300 Fox Way, so Ronan’s first reaction was amusement. It just lasted for a second, before his eyes drifted to Adam’s arms and it became obvious what the problem was. His heart plummeted. He was about to say something, or just to breathe out Adam’s name, but he stopped himself, remembering his promise to let Adam speak first. 

Most noticeable were the rows of red cuts and scars littering Adam’s forearms. Most were clearly put there recently; others looked older, on their way to healing totally. The second thing Ronan noticed was that underneath them, there were bruises, faded enough that he probably wouldn’t have noticed had he not already been staring at Adam’s arms. It looked as if someone had wrapped their hands around his arms so tightly they’d left full handprints there. 

Ronan’s natural instinct was anger, but he made himself keep calm. Internally, he was thinking death threats towards whoever had done this to the man who meant so much to him. He was also internally yelling at himself- how had Adam been this broken, without him knowing it?

Adam took a long, rattling breath before he began to speak.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, here goes.   
> This is the bad chapter. The first part of this is a rape scene, and while I've tried to leave as much as possible to the imagination, please do not read it if it isn't safe for you or will upset you. Just skip this chapter, you'll be able to understand the next one without it.   
> There is also a VERY graphic depiction of self-harm. Again, please don't read this if you will be unsafe. I really care about everyone reading this and I don't want you to get hurt.
> 
> If you're worried, send me a message on tumblr @foxholeravens. If you need, I can tell you more about what is/isn't in the chapter or send you an edited version with whatever you need removed, removed.
> 
> That said, I'm glad so many people enjoyed the last chapter, and I hope you enjoy this just as much.

On his sixth day at college, Adam was still having some trouble finding his way around. It wasn’t late, just getting dark, and he had been attempting to find somewhere to buy cheap food he could cook in his dorm. He had already figured out that he did not want to go to the food hall for every meal, and besides, he was sure he’d spend so much of his time working he would want to do it while eating as well. 

It had been a successful trip, up until the point he realised he’d entered the campus from a different spot than usual and had no idea how to get back to his dorm. He had tried using Google maps, and had been wandering around campus for about half an hour. 

He had looked for someone to ask where to go, but had seen nobody, despite it being so early in the evening. Two plastic shopping bags of food were hanging from his arm and they were beginning to hurt. 

Adam reached a dead end, and turned to go back the way he had come. It was getting darker, and he was beginning to get nervous walking around such empty streets.   
As he turned a corner, walking faster than he had been before, he almost collided with a man a few inches taller than him, walking in the opposite direction. 

“Shit, sorry.” He looked apologetically at the man. 

“That’s alright, don’t worry,” The man smiled back at him. “Are you okay? You look a little shaken.” 

Adam’s gut feeling was not to trust him, to simply say he was fine and continue trying to find his own way back. But he could find no justification for the instinct. He needed help to find his dorm, and here was someone offering help. It was his best chance of actually getting to eat some of the food he had bought before midnight. 

“Actually, I’m kind of lost. I don’t reckon you could help me find my way to my dorm, could you?” Adam gave the man another apologetic look. 

“That’s not a problem at all!” He smiled, turning so that he was no longer facing Adam, but was at his side. “What number is it?” 

“249,” Adam replied, “I wouldn’t have a problem, but I don’t think I’ve even been to this part of campus yet.”   
The man told Adam that he should follow him, and they would find the room together. Even though it didn’t seem that the other man knew exactly where he was going either, it was nice to have the company of someone who seemed a little more confident about what to do. After a few minutes, neither had said anything, and Adam didn’t feel as if they were getting any closer to finding his room. He felt a little uncomfortable, but didn’t want to say as much to the only person who he had seen who could help him. 

Then, though, Adam was given good reason to panic. The man reached out suddenly, and wrapped a hand all the way around Adam’s arm, squeezing it tight and pulling Adam harshly into the small alleyway between two lecture hall buildings. 

“What are you doing?” Adam spoke quickly, trying to wrench his arm out of the taller man’s grip. The only answer there was, was Adam’s other arm being grabbed, and his head being unceremoniously slammed into the wall behind him, almost knocking him out. He tried again to remove himself from the man’s grasp, but each time he did the man shoved him backwards again into the wall. 

Adam wasn’t completely helpless- he managed to get a few hits and kicks in, shouting for help, and he kneed the other man in the crotch, but he had been taken by surprise and eventually fell to the ground, where the other man straddled his thighs and put a hand over his mouth. 

“Be quiet,” he spat, before slowly removing his hand from Adam’s mouth, so he could use it to unbutton and unzip his jeans. After he pulled his jeans down, he moved to undo and pull down Adam’s, and Adam choked on a sob. 

“Please stop, please,” 

“Shut the fuck up.” The other man hissed. He hit Adam again, and Adam was sure his face was probably bleeding. He tried fighting back again. He was on the brink of unconsciousness, and whether or not trying to push the taller man off him would help now, even if it didn’t perhaps it would mean he was knocked out and wouldn’t have to be awake for what was about to happen. 

Unfortunately, Adam wasn’t knocked out. He felt simultaneously like he was not in his own body, and also very much like he was present as the man took what he wanted from him. Adam had never felt a pain comparable to this, not even on the day he had lost his hearing to his father’s fists. He stopped struggling, but the man still held him down, gripping his arms with all his strength. 

When the man was finished, he pulled up his jeans, and left Adam on the ground with his pants and boxers around his knees. 

Adam had no idea how long he lay there before he had the strength to get up, but by the time he did the sun had been set for a long time. He shakily redressed himself and limped out of the alleyway. Every few seconds he stopped to lean against the wall. It hurt too much to walk further all at once.   
There was still almost nobody around, but he avoided everyone he saw, cringing every time he ducked into a space between buildings to avoid being seen. He tried to walk around the edge of campus, reasoning that he had to, by default, get to somewhere he knew eventually. It was going well, until he heard a voice behind him. 

“Hey,”

Shit. Adam started to limp faster, ignoring the growing pain between his legs. Whoever was behind him sped up too, to catch up to him. 

“Hey,” they repeated. Adam relaxed a little when he realised it was a female voice. “Are you okay?” Adam winced- those had been the words the other man had used, and trusting him hadn’t gone so well. A year ago, Adam wouldn’t have trusted either person, preferring to find his own way. Maybe learning to accept help hadn’t been such a positive change as everyone kept telling him it was. He didn’t reply. 

The woman ran a little so that she ended up walking beside him. There was really nowhere for Adam to go now. 

“I promise I’m not going to hurt you,” She said softly, walking next to Adam but being careful to keep a safe distance between them, not touching him at all. “Do you need me to help you?” 

Adam nodded silently. 

“Okay, what do you need?” She asked, still talking softly, and quietly. “My name’s Sophie, by the way.” 

Knowing the girl’s name immediately made Adam feel safer. It was unjustified, but he remembered how the man hadn’t offered his name, most likely to make it as difficult as possible for Adam to identify him after the fact. Of course he had no way of knowing of Sophie was honest, but he had very little choice but to talk to her. Adam wasn’t sure he could keep walking anymore, so he stopped and leaned against a lamppost, looking at the girl.  
She had bright pink hair that reminded him of the texture of cotton candy, and almost reached to her waist. She was shorter than him, but not by much, and wore a black sundress with a pattern of red roses and skulls. 

“I just need to get back to my dorm.” 

She gave him an incredulous look. Adam wasn’t sure how bad he looked to her, but she clearly thought he could use more help than just going back to his dorm. He lifted a hand to his head where it had been hit, and it came away wet with blood. 

“Are you sure you don’t want medical attention? You look like you’re in pain.” Sophie studied his face. Adam shook his head. 

“No, I just want to get back.” 

“Okay. What’s your dorm number, I’ll walk you there.” Sophie offered a hand to help Adam pull himself forward from the lamppost, but he shook his head. She dropped her hand and took a small step back. 

“249.” 

“Okay, I can help you find that. That’s in my building.” 

Adam breathed out a long breath. Sophie waited for him to steady himself again before she started walking, keeping pace with him and not making him walk any faster than he was able to. She didn’t mention the fact Adam was limping, but she was obviously concerned by it. 

“Once I get in the building I’ll be fine, I just haven’t found my way around yet.” Adam spoke after a couple of minutes of walking. He was starting to recognise where he was, which was a relief. 

“I kind of want to walk you to your door anyway, man. You don’t look good.” She looked at him and grimaced to demonstrate her point. Adam couldn’t really argue with that. He couldn’t see himself, but he knew she was right. 

“What’s your name?” Sophie asked. Adam felt a little apprehensive at the question, but Sophie already knew his dorm number, so it didn’t make a difference if she knew his name as well. Actually, Adam’s rapist knew his dorm number as well. Adam decided to repress that thought and have a meltdown about it later in the privacy of his own room. 

“Adam.” 

“Well Adam, nice to meet you. I can see it’s not in the best circumstances, but still.” She smiled at him apologetically. 

They didn’t talk again until they were at Adam’s door. They had gotten to the building and Adam had breathed an audible sigh of relief, causing Sophie to glance back at him in vague concern, and Sophie refused to leave Adam until she was sure he was safe, so he led her to his door and she asked him again if he wanted to go to a hospital before she let him unlock it. 

“Before I go,” she said, as Adam crossed the threshold into his dorm, “Can I give you my phone number? I’m not trying to hit on you, or anything, just in case you need something.”   
Adam nodded. He reached to get his phone from his desk and brought up the screen to add a contact, handing it to Sophie to put in her details. She copied across her number from her own phone and typed in her name before handing it back. 

“Please don’t hesitate to call if you need help with anything.”   
Adam nodded again, thanked her, and shut the door. 

He spent a long time in the shower, feeling phantom hands around his wrists and the phantom weight of another body against his, feeling disgustingly dirty and scrubbing at his skin until it was bright red. After about half an hour, he collapsed in the bottom of the shower and sobbed, from pain and from the knowledge of what had been done to him just hours before. He felt like there should be something to do now, a procedure to go through or something distinctly different, but there was nothing. It was disconcerting. He wouldn’t go as far as to say it was the worst thing he was feeling, but it definitely made everything else worse. There should be an aftermath that wasn’t just in his own head- there were bruises, but he wanted something to do, someone to yell at, a tangible consequence. 

Adam looked at the forming bruises on his arms and had the impossible urge to dig them out from under his skin. He pressed his own fingers into his arms as if he was trying to do exactly that, but still wished he could break the skin. 

As he opened the bathroom cupboard to find the replacement blades for his razor, he silenced any part of his mind that was still telling him that it was a bad idea. He had made a decision, and each moment he spent looking for the blades just cemented it more in his mind. 

Adam’s shaking hands meant that when he picked up the blade, it cut into his fingers. He ignored it and swiped the blade three times fast across his arm where the worst of the bruises were, watching as beads of blood formed on the shallow wounds. The next time he pressed down harder- still craving the feeling of trying to remove the bruises, and this time the blood didn’t bead, but welled up in a thick line.   
He pressed the blade again into the first cuts he had made, making them deeper. He winced at the feeling as he cut through already irritated and painful flesh. 

It took a few more minutes for him to stop, and that was only because he noticed that the blood was beginning to drip onto the tiled floor.   
There were no band-aids in the cupboard, so he wrapped a hand towel tightly around his arm to stop the blood from getting onto anything else. Once he was sure he was no longer bleeding, he picked up his dirty clothes. There was blood on his jeans, and not just what had fallen from his arm.   
He shoved the clothes under his bed to hide them, not putting them in the wash because he fully intended to permanently dispose of them. He dressed again in a t-shirt and loose sweatpants, and collapsed into bed. 

That night, Adam didn’t sleep at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry. I don't want to misrepresent anything here, so let me know if I should change anything.  
> Remember the pink-haired girl Ronan talked to in the first chapter? Yep, that's Sophie! 
> 
> Writing this, I realised I could write a lot more about the aftermath of what happened here and about Sophie. I already have the rest of this fic planned, but if anyone is interested I could create a series and write more about this.   
> Please let me know in the comments if you'd be interested!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is cut a scene short because I have an exam and I'm tired... sorry. We'll get there soon.  
> The last little bit of this, and the whole first scene of the coming chapter were written purely with Prince_Kaspar in mind. Enjoy!

“I’m going to kill him. Who is he? I’m going to kill him.” Ronan was standing up now, running his hands across his face and over his shaved head. He had started pacing soon after Adam’s story had started, and grown increasingly agitated since, but had made good on his promise not to interrupt. 

Adam had at first been worked up too, but then had grown detached, which Ronan supposed was probably a defence mechanism to stop him from breaking down completely.  
Adam shrugged in response to Ronan’s question. 

“I'm not even sure. Like, I'd never seen him before... that, and I saw this guy Sophie says is called Joseph and I recognised him, but I have no proof and I can’t even be completely certain. Eyewitness testimony is unreliable at best.”  
It was just like Adam to have such a clinical response to being hurt instead of admitting how much it was truly affecting him. Even if he couldn’t legally prove who had done this to him, Ronan couldn’t even imagine how Adam must feel seeing this man around campus, or god forbid even in classes. How could he pretend that he wasn’t affected by that? 

“Fuck. Fuck, Adam. I don’t even know what to say.” Ronan hated himself for making this his first response. It wasn’t exactly very comforting, but he truly didn’t know what to say. Adam wouldn’t want anything that sounded pitying, however well intentioned, and it wasn’t as if Ronan could start by asking why Adam didn’t tell him sooner. Contrary to popular belief, he wasn’t a complete dickhead. At least, not to Adam. 

“It’s fine,” Adam started, ignoring the crestfallen look Ronan gave him, “there’s nothing either of us can do. I just have to deal with it.”  
Ronan couldn’t help but think that the red marks covering both of Adam’s arms did not look very much like ‘dealing with it’. 

“Well first of all, Adam, that sounds a lot like you’re planning on doing that alone, which you definitely don’t have to do.”  
Adam didn’t reply immediately, but looked at Ronan expectantly. Ronan hoped he wasn’t waiting for a ‘second of all’, because he certainly wasn’t going to voice the point about Adam’s arms. After a minute Adam sighed. 

“I can tell you have about a thousand questions,” he said, “I’d rather you just asked me.”  
Whether that was the truth or not, Ronan wasn’t about to take it at face value. He was still furious and he didn’t want it to appear that he was taking that out on his boyfriend. Although, he was intrigued about Sophie and whether Adam had taken her up on the offer to call. A part of him was jealous that it hadn’t been him Adam had relied on, and another, larger part hoped that Sophie had been here every time Adam had needed someone for the past two and a half weeks. 

“I just want to know what you need me to do,” Ronan replied truthfully. None of his questions mattered at all compared to the importance of Adam’s safety and comfort. “And also you don’t have to stay standing up, come sit back down if you want.”  
Adam didn’t say anything, but sat back down at his desk next to Ronan. 

“Do you want to talk about it any more?” Ronan knew he didn’t feel like the conversation was over, but he didn’t want to carry on if Adam didn’t want to. Adam nodded. 

“Can you just ask me whatever you want to ask? It gives me a place to start.” 

“Did you call Sophie?” Ronan decided this was the most harmless question he had. 

“Do you mean that night, or ever?” 

“Both.”  
The two boys weren’t making eye contact. Ronan was looking at Adam, but Adam was staring intently at his hands, which were clenched in his lap. Ronan risked moving his chair a little closer to Adam’s, as he had been okay with touching him earlier, and Adam looked up but didn’t tell him to move away again. 

“Yeah, I did. Not right away, but I had class the next morning and I didn’t want to leave the dorm alone.” Adam trailed off at the end of the sentence, like he was ashamed that he’d been frightened. 

“Did she walk to class with you?” Ronan asked. Adam nodded, and Ronan mentally sent a silent thank you to Sophie, wherever she was, for keeping Adam safe. The other boy still wasn’t looking at him, and although Ronan wasn’t the best at emotional talks, he knew Adam well and he could tell at least roughly what he was worrying about. Ronan felt awkward trying to formulate a reassurance in his head. It didn’t come naturally to him at all, but it was necessary right now, and he needed Adam to hear what he was about to say. 

“You know that it’s not like, fucking, your fault or anything, right?” He said quickly. “You don’t need to be ashamed or any of that.”  
Adam smiled ironically. Ronan waited for a response. 

“Yeah, I know.” Adam said, only half looking like he did know. “But it’s okay, I guess, if it’s weird for you or you don’t want to be with me because it is gross and this-“ he vaguely gestured at the cuts on his arms, speaking quickly and all in one breath, “-is a lot, you don’t have to deal with this-“ 

“Parrish.” Ronan cut off his rant before he had the chance to convince himself of a worst case scenario. His breathing was already starting to speed up.“I still want to be with you. I want to deal with this with you.”  
Adam’s expression softened immediately. 

“Thank you.” He said earnestly. “I love you.” 

“I love you too, Adam.” Ronan said. There was a pause, but not an uncomfortable one, before Adam spoke again.

“What else do you want to ask?” 

Ronan took a minute to think about his wording, and Adam spent that minute still staring down at his hands, but stealing small glances at Ronan occasionally with something like need in his eyes. Not a need in a sexual sense, or like desire- but like trust and like home. 

“When was the last time you hurt yourself?”  
It didn’t look like this was the question Adam was expecting. Ronan hoped Adam hadn’t thought he would ignore that part of the story. When Adam had described cutting himself after his assault, Ronan had had to quickly hide the tears that started rolling down his cheeks. 

“Last night.” Adam spoke as quietly as he could without risking having to repeat himself.  
Ronan squeezed his eyes closed and sighed lightly, trying not to let Adam see that tears were welling up again. He imagined what he was doing last night while Adam was taking a blade to his arm- most likely still lying in bed, feeling sorry for himself. He had known getting into bed that he wasn’t going to get to sleep. He could have left the barns sooner, could have been here for Adam sooner. 

That was an unhelpful train of thought. He tried to push it from his mind. 

“I’m staying here.” Ronan stated it like a fact, which in his mind it was.  
This finally made Adam look up at him. 

“What?” 

“I’m staying here. I won’t leave you here on your own.” Ronan never wanted Adam out of his sight again. The thought of someone hurting him or him hurting himself while Ronan was unaware at home and unable to help was intolerable, too much to bear. 

“I don’t think you can,” Adam shook his head. “How would you do that?” 

Ronan didn’t much care how. If Adam needed him, he was going to find a way to stay here. He didn’t even have his phone, but Adam had his, and he could use it to sort anything out that they needed to back in Henrietta. Ronan didn’t care if he had to sleep on the floor next to Adam’s bed every night. 

“Adam. Do you want me to stay here?” Ronan’s tone was somewhere between comforting and demanding. Adam nodded. 

“Then I’ll stay. Whatever I have to do, I’ll work it out.” 

Adam took a deep breath in and out, and nodded again as if trying to compose himself. He turned his chair around so that he was facing Ronan, and held out a hand in invitation. Ronan took it, and ran his thumb slowly along the back of it; partly to reassure Adam and partly to reassure himself that Adam was right here, not going anywhere. Adam looked at their hands intertwined and gave a small smile- it amused him how much Ronan had always adored his hands. 

“We could go back to the barns at the weekend to get everything you need,” Adam suggested. It was Thursday, so Ronan would only have one and a half days of wearing the same jeans and probably borrowing Adam’s shirts and sleepwear. 

“Sure. We should probably let someone know I’m here in case anyone tries to call me.” It was unlikely that anyone would, but occasionally the Fox Way women would visit, or Declan would call to make sure Ronan wasn’t doing anything he disapproved of. He thought it was safe to say that if Declan called his mobile a few times and got no answer, and then found the barns empty, his head might actually explode. 

“Who should I call?” Adam didn’t even suggest that Ronan should use the phone himself. 

“Declan, probably.” Ronan pulled a face, and Adam laughed. He picked up his mobile and scrolled through the contacts until he got to Declan’s name. He put the phone on speaker and held it in between himself and Ronan so that Ronan could hear the conversation even without participating.  
Ronan made a show of hiding his face in his hands when he heard the dial tone. When Declan picked up, he sounded wary. 

“Adam?” 

“Yeah, hi Declan. I’m with Ronan.” At this, Ronan shook his head vigorously at Adam and mouthed ‘No you’re not.” Fortunately, Declan didn’t even attempt to greet Ronan. 

“…Right.” Declan sounded exhausted already, just at the mention of Ronan's name. Adam held back a smirk. 

“We just thought we should let you know that Ronan is staying with me at college right now,” Adam said, “and he doesn’t have his phone, just in case you were going to try to get in touch with him.”  
There was a long-suffering sigh from the other end of the line. 

“Great. Thanks for letting me know my brother is still incapable of making responsible choices. Will he be at church or will he be too busy?”  
Adam looked at Ronan for an answer. Ronan shrugged. 

“He doesn’t know.” 

“Sure, fine. Anything else to tell me?” If Declan had sounded exhausted when the phone call started, he had now completely run out of any energy he had to deal with Ronan-related issues. Ronan laughed quietly, half hoping that his brother could hear it. 

“No, that’s it.” 

“Okay. Talk to you soon, Adam.” 

“Talk to you soon. Bye, Declan.” Adam hung up, and Ronan shook his head. He hadn’t even had to interact with Declan directly and it had still been awful. Even when he wasn’t in the conversation, Declan found a way to wind him up. Of course, he had more than likely known that Ronan could hear him. 

“He’s so infuriating,” Ronan crossed his arms on the desk and groaned into them. Adam placed a hand on his upper arm in solidarity. 

“At least now he’ll be less infuriating later than he would be if you just disappeared for a week.” Adam said. Ronan nodded, still into his arms. 

“What do we do now?” Asked Adam, leaning back in his chair. He wasn’t in the headspace for more college work after the conversation he’d just had. He wanted to sit with Ronan’s arms around him doing something that required little to no mental effort- sleep or television, essentially. It was now just after 12pm, not the time for sleep, but Adam had only had an hour of sleep earlier and he could tell that was all Ronan had gotten as well. He tried not to feel too guilty about not letting Ronan sleep longer. 

“Whatever you want. I’ll make us some food if you like.”  
Adam gave Ronan a grateful smile, but shook his head. 

“There’s not much in here. I’ve kind of been avoiding going shopping.” He was avoiding Ronan’s eyes again. “I know it’s dumb, I just thought I’d come back through the right place last time and obviously…” He trailed off. 

“It’s fine. Should I go get some stuff for us?” Ronan offered. 

“Would you? I’ll love you forever.” Adam grinned. 

“You were going to do that anyway.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all wanted an update, so I guess I'm splitting chapters again.   
> This is the scene I wrote for Prince_Kaspar, which is pure pynch fluff. Have fun, and know that I'm writing the final update to this fic right now.   
> Sorry this is so short but I saw no reason not to give you this as it's been finished ages :)

Ronan returned 45 minutes later carrying five shopping bags. He’d bought everything that was on the shopping list he and Adam had made together, plus everything else he’d seen and liked the look of. He wasn’t entirely sure there was space in the dorm for all of it, but they could eat whatever they couldn’t store. 

He knocked the door, a shopping bag swinging and hitting the door as well as he did so, and Adam opened it immediately. 

“Fuck, all this shit’s so heavy,” Ronan said as he made a show of struggling through the doorway. He put the bags down as soon as he was inside and clenched and unclenched his hands to bring the circulation back into his fingers. Adam had offered to go with him to help carry whatever they bought, but Ronan could see he didn’t really want to and so had denied his help. While Ronan shook his arms to get rid of the pins and needles, Adam picked up two of the bags and carried them into the tiny kitchen area. Ronan couldn’t help but feel it was all hopelessly domestic. 

He picked up the other here bags himself and went to start unpacking them with Adam. He put the ingredients for pancakes on the counter while they put everything else away. 

“Did we remember to list things to put on the pancakes?” Adam asked after a dip in conversation  
that had been a minute or so long. The list they’d made had been about thirty items long, and Ronan had added to it as he went along, but there were already a few things they had remembered they still needed. They were going back to Henrietta in the BMW on Saturday though, so it didn’t matter. 

“No, we didn’t, but I got stuff anyway.” Ronan picked up one of the bags and produced from it two different types of syrup, chocolate sauce, nutella, strawberries, blueberries, lemon juice and sugar, and various colourful packets of cake decorations. Adam laughed. 

“That seems slightly excessive, Ro.” He smiled. Ronan shook his head. 

“Impossible. You can never have excessive pancake toppings, Parrish.” Ronan said in a scandalised tone. 

“I think you’ll find you can, Lynch.” 

Ronan’s response was to start making pancake batter, shaking his head at Adam as if he had said something sacrilegious. Adam helped only by handing Ronan ingredients as he knew from experience the batter always somehow turned out worse when he made it than when Ronan did. 

“I’m putting my own pancake in the pan myself, though.” He insisted, watching Ronan turn on the stove. He sounded so unnecessarily serious that Ronan had to laugh. 

Once Ronan was finished mixing the batter, he gave the ladle to Adam so that he could make his pancake first. What they were actually making was something closer to crepes than American style pancakes, but crepes were easier and more fun to make. Ronan tried to flip the pancake, but Adam shot him a glare and snatched the spatula to do it himself. He dropped it partway through and had to use the spatula to straighten it out, while Ronan teased him. 

“Okay, Parrish, I think that’s done.” Ronan said when parts of the pancake started to brown. Adam shook his head and pressed it down onto the pan again. 

“Let me do one!” Ronan whined, and Adam laughed at he tipped the pancake onto his plate, not even bothering with the spatula considering his failure the last time. It folded itself in three and Adam used his hands to straighten it out, and reached for the Nutella. 

Ronan put four different toppings at once on his, and Adam raised an eyebrow at it. Ronan tried to roll it up, and it tore. Adam laughed at him. 

“Shut the fuck up,” Ronan tried not to look too much like he was smiling. It wasn’t working very well. He was also pretty sure that ninety per cent of the syrup that he had put on his pancake was just pooled on his plate, but it still tasted good and he wouldn’t be made to feel bad about it. 

Adam continued to watch him as he ate, clearly judging. They made eye contact for a solid thirty seconds before Ronan broke, and reached across the table. He placed his hand palm up halfway across it, a clear invitation. Adam took it. Ronan ate the rest of his pancake one handed. 

“Want another one?” He asked Adam, and Adam nodded. They both got up, and Ronan handed Adam the ladle. Adam shook his head and didn’t take it. Instead, he wrapped his arms around Ronan, and rested his head on his shoulder. 

“You do it. I’m tired.” He yawned as if to demonstrate his point. 

“How am I meant to do that when you’re hanging off me like a baby koala?” Ronan couldn’t keep the smile out of his voice. That was, surprisingly, becoming a recurring issue today. Adam shrugged. 

“Find a way.” 

Ronan extracted one of his arms from Adam’s hug and used it to reach halfway across the counter to the bowl of batter with the ladle. Once he had put the batter in the pan, he leaned his head down to rest it on Adam’s. He turned around to place a kiss on Adam’s forehead. 

“Ew, what a sap.” Adam said. Ronan shook his head and gave an exaggerated sigh. 

“Says the koala.” Ronan turned Adam so that they were facing each other, and kissed him again. 

The pancake burned.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello, I'm very sorry for not updating this in over a month. I've been really busy and then on holiday and I still have so much work to do.   
> This has a really abrupt ending and that's because I'm splitting my planned chapter up again, it just keeps getting longer and it's taking me forever and I just wanted to upload. I'll finish the last couple of thousand words soon and then this will be completed. If you're actually still reading this, I love you.

After Adam and Ronan had finished eating, Adam had tried to finish his work, but he kept yawning every few seconds and could barely keep his eyes open. It hadn’t taken much effort from Ronan to convince him to go back to bed; Ronan had promised to wake him if he had another nightmare and after that he had fallen asleep almost immediately. 

Ronan would have very much liked to press his chest against his boyfriend’s back, lay an arm protectively around him and fall asleep himself, but he didn’t, because he had said he wouldn’t. So he sat beside Adam, on the side of the bed furthest away from the wall, and started reading the first book he saw.  
It was awful. It wasn’t even a fiction book; it was an academic textbook that Ronan understood next to none of. Though granted, he wasn’t trying very hard to. It was simply meant to give him something to distract himself from both how tired he was and his own thoughts without having to use the TV, which would have made sound. Adam wasn’t a heavy sleeper at the best of times. 

However, the universe appeared to want Adam to only get an hour of sleep at any one time, because just over an hour later, somebody began pounding on the door.   
Ronan ignored it for a few seconds, and it stopped. He looked over at Adam to make sure he was still sleeping. He was, thankfully. About ten seconds later, the knocking started up again, accompanied by a voice, not yelling, but definitely speaking in a deliberately raised tone, through the door. 

“Adam? Are you in?”   
Ronan continued to ignore it. If it got louder, he would get up, but for now he didn’t know if moving was more likely to wake Adam than the sound was.   
And then, Adam’s phone began to ring from across the room. Adam stirred, but didn’t wake up, and Ronan tried to reach the phone without getting out of the bed. He fell out of the bed and onto the floor, making a crash louder than the ringtone. 

“Shit,” He whispered. 

By this point the phone had stopped ringing, but Ronan grabbed it anyway. The screen was still lit up, stating that Adam had a missed call from Sophie. The knocking at the door continued.   
Ronan could only assume that the person at the door was a) Sophie, and b) not going to leave, and he was no longer in the bed anyway, so he made the decision that on balance, Adam had a better chance of staying asleep if he answered the door. Also, the noise was becoming really fucking annoying. 

Also, Ronan was bored. 

Sophie had clearly been leaning against the door as she knocked, because when Ronan opened it, she stumbled a little bit into the dorm. Ronan was vaguely surprised to see that Sophie was the same girl who had given him directions to Adam’s dorm earlier in the day. 

“Hello?” He raised an eyebrow at her.   
She looked a little embarrassed, which in Ronan’s opinion was to her credit. 

“Hey, um, is Adam here?” 

“Yes.” 

There was a few seconds of silence. 

“Can I speak to him?” She was understandably beginning to lose the small amount of calm she had possessed when she fell through the doorway. Ronan didn’t particularly care, but knew Adam would, so his answer was a little more co-operative. 

“Well, he’s asleep, but I guess you could wait? Sophie, right?” He took a few steps into the dorm to let her in, and they ended up sitting on the sofa. She looked almost relieved that he knew who she was. 

“Yeah. Does it seem rude to ask who you are?” She cringed, a little bit apologetically. Ronan wondered if Adam ever talked about him to his college friends. 

“Ronan.” He said, and then after a second added “Lynch.” 

For a moment something behind Sophie’ eyes cleared, as if everything suddenly made sense, and her mouth made an “O” shape, but just as quickly as it had cleared it came back, and she looked even more confused than before. 

“Wait. I thought you were a farmer.”   
Ronan burst out laughing. 

“Well… I guess?” He tried to imagine what context, if any, Adam would have given for the fact that Ronan technically owned a farm. He got a sudden image in his mind of himself in a straw hat with a piece of hay in his mouth and almost completely lost it. 

“So you’re a goth farmer?” Sophie was laughing now, as well. 

“Oh, are we stereotyping farmers now? Because that’s offensive.” 

“Maybe we are. Maybe it’s just unnatural that you can work on a farm all day in the sun wearing all black without dying of heatstroke.” She shrugged.   
Ronan feigned offence. 

“I’ll have you know that my clothing choices are perfectly adequate for feeding some animals in, thank you very much!”   
Sophie mimed zipping her lips closed, and Ronan shook his head. There was a small noise from the direction of the bedroom, and both Ronan and Sophie turned around. Adam stood in the bedroom doorway, looking at them blearily and rubbing his eyes. 

“Fuck, did I wake you up?” Ronan made to get up and go to Adam, but Adam was walking in his direction anyway. 

“Sophie?” 

“Hey, Adam,” She replied softly. Adam frowned at her, looking confused. “I just wanted to check up on you, sorry if I woke you up.” 

Adam shook his head. “No, I would’ve woken up anyway.” He sat on the sofa in between Ronan and Sophie, leaning his head on Ronan’s shoulder. Ronan shrugged him off and he made a small noise of complaint, but Ronan had only wanted to free his arm so that he could wrap it around Adam’s shoulders. Adam manoeuvred them both so that they were facing Sophie, Ronan’s arm around Adam and Adam resting against Ronan’s chest. Ronan pretended he wasn’t as happy about it as he was. 

“Why were you worried?” Adam asked. 

“I tried to call you hours ago and you didn’t answer or call me back, and I’d directed some emo boy,” she gestured at Ronan, “to your room, so I wanted to make sure you weren’t like, dead or something.” 

Adam laughed, and Ronan smirked at Sophie. 

“So much discrimination. First you’re saying farmers can’t be Goth, and now you’re implying emos are murderers? Who do I report this to?” 

“Would you really report the girl who’s been keeping your boyfriend alive while you weren’t even here, Lynch?”   
Ronan put a hand to his heart and winced. 

“Cold, Sophie, that was cold.” 

Adam rolled his eyes. “Stop flirting, I feel left out.” He put his hand over Ronan’s mouth as he said it to stop him from arguing back. Sophie pouted and pulled Adam’s hand away by his forearm. 

“Why would I flirt with a girl, Parrish, that’s fucking gross,” Ronan grimaced, and Sophie stuck her middle finger up at him. “Tell her I’m not a murderer!” 

“Sophie, my boyfriend isn’t a murderer.” Adam smirked. Sophie nodded. 

“That’s all I wanted to hear.” She grinned at him. “Also, Adam, you have class in like, half an hour.” Adam looked at his watch, and groaned.

“Shit.” 

“Should I wait for you?” Sophie asked. 

“Sure, let me just get dressed.” Adam buried himself further into Ronan’s shirt and sighed. Ronan wrapped both arms around him. 

“Want me to walk with you guys?” 

Adam shook his head. “You’ve had even less sleep than me, you should go back to bed.” Ronan didn’t think he sounded too sure about it, though.   
Ronan pushed Adam back from him gently so that they could make eye contact. 

“I’ve had more sleep today than I’ve had in the past week already. If you want me to go with you, I will.”   
“If you’re sure you don’t mind.” 

“Of course I don’t mind, idiot,” Ronan rolled his eyes. “Go get ready.” He pushed Adam all the way off him, ignoring his protests. Adam glared at him as he retreated back into the bedroom. 

While Adam was getting dressed, Ronan went into the kitchen and got out two mugs. He thought for a second before calling back into the other room, “Sophie, do you want coffee?” He figured he should probably make at least a slight effort, considering that if Sophie actually ended up hating him it would be pretty awkward for Adam. 

“I’m good, thanks!” She called back.   
By the time Adam was dressed, Ronan was back on the sofa drinking his own coffee, Adam’s waiting on the table next to him. 

“Oh my god, Ronan you’re amazing,” Adam sat on the arm of the sofa next to Ronan and drank half of the mug at once, then grimaced. “I think I just burned half my mouth off.”


End file.
